Kellen Mrkva

Who they are

Mrkva studies consumer decision making. This site draws on one paper, the 2020 study.

This page records only what the paper and its published record state. Biography beyond the cited work is not given here.

Key papers

Moderating loss aversion (2020), with Johnson, Gächter and Herrmann. The study asked whether loss aversion, the tendency for losses to weigh more heavily than equivalent gains, changes with a person's circumstances. Across five samples totalling 17,720 participants, more domain knowledge and experience went with less loss aversion, though people at every level of knowledge were still loss averse. Among car buyers, greater knowledge of a particular attribute reduced loss aversion for that attribute only. Older consumers were more loss averse than younger ones.

The authors read these results as support for the view that preferences are partly constructed at the moment of choice. They argued that the findings challenge claims that loss aversion is a fallacy, or that it is fully explained by status quo bias, by risk aversion, or by samples of educated laboratory participants.

Key ideas

The paper's title states its position: loss aversion has moderators, but it has not disappeared. That middle position matters for anyone applying the idea. An experienced trader or an expert buyer may show much less of the asymmetry than a novice, so a single coefficient applied to everyone will mislead. At the same time, the effect was present across every knowledge level tested.

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